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One of the challenges that faces any society is how boys will become men. In many societies the passage is mapped and enacted through ritual initiations or through military training. It also periodically causes great anxiety. Two recent books encourage reflection on different aspects of the passage from boys to men.

The church has always been more about family than religion to me - my grandmother's grandmother did it all in Latin, but isn't it cool that we went through the same motions? - and I thought it always would. Then I got lucky: I moved to the world's most populous Muslim country.

Philip Larkin spent 30 years as a librarian, but famously wrote a rebellious poem in which he asks plaintively: 'Why should I let/the toad work/Squat on my life?' Technology is not the only force that shapes our destinies, an idea I need to remind myself of whenever I start worrying about the future of my children and grandchildren.

In 2010, the UN General Assembly and Human Rights Council recognised a human right to water, guaranteeing access for everyone to 'sufficient, safe, acceptable, physically accessible and affordable water for personal and domestic uses'. Eight years on, it is past time that Australia incorporated this right into domestic law.

How does sport elevate and constrain our understanding of what it is to be a man? Luke Ablett is a former professional football player, who played for the Sydney Swans from 2002 to 2009. In this episode, he talks about what led him to advocate for gender equality, and the questions raised by toxic masculinity.

The banking royal commission has already come to resemble the earlier child abuse royal commission. To observers who share a personal and public-spirited interest in the decent functioning of institutions, the similarities invite reflection on why two apparently different forms of institution should behave in such similar ways.

I remember holding your hand, brown against white. Holding it so tight, so the waves of dirty looks and hushed giggles didn't wash my tiny body away. They asked what a 'wet back' was doing with a little white girl. They asked what it was like to have a dad that talked so funny. They asked things I didn't know the answers to.

The Turnbull government holds the view that tax relief for companies and middle-income earners is necessary to improve the economic prosperity of Australia, offering a financial hand up to households struggling to pay their bills. For those on Newstart, though, those same increased costs of living are being all but ignored.

While it is a matter of public record the Turnbull government blocked attempts to establish a royal commission into the financial services sector on multiple occasions, the question as to why, especially when it expeditiously facilitated a similar inquiry into corruption within the union movement, is of more than academic interest.

The bushland forms part of the scant wild space remaining in coastland eroded by development. I speak my husband's name. 'Look,' I whisper. The bright green bird lies still in the late afternoon light, showing no signs of life. But the rosella is scrambling. No obvious cause of injury is visible.

As someone who has a language background which will in all likelihood not make it past one more generation in my family here in Australia, I've long understood the way language loss can occur as a result of migration, to say nothing of acts like colonisation. These are great forces that are difficult but, as I've found, not impossible to resist.

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